


tobio and the great bike fiasco

by tealseal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, They're third-years, VERY brief mention of minor homophobia, and i don't blame him, but!!!! don't worry, everyone is okay, hinata is precious, it's idiotically fluffy, it's not the focus here, kageyama is SUFFERING, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25574929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealseal/pseuds/tealseal
Summary: hinata gets a new bicycle. kageyama gets tortured.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 12
Kudos: 204
Collections: Kagehina





	tobio and the great bike fiasco

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by my own way-too-tall bicycle, which i struggle with daily.

In retrospect, Tobio decides, he was doomed from the minute Hinata's bike finally broke. It's a cold spring evening at the start of their third year at Karasuno, and Tobio is loitering outside Sakanoshita store, waiting for his boyfriend, who stayed behind after practice to chat with Yamaguchi. 

A joyous scream of " _KAGEYAMAAAAAA!"_ sends a happy sparkle up Tobio's spine. He can't help his tiny smile as he looks up and sees Hinata and his bike hurtling down the hill from the school at an alarming speed. 

"Oi! Dumbass! Slow down!" Tobio shouts, but Hinata is on a mission, and no puny hand-brakes could ever hope to stop the sunset. 

Tobio sees The Disaster almost before it occurs. One moment, Hinata is yelling something absolutely incomprehensible, and the next, he's flying. 

Oh, Tobio thinks. This is what Hinata means when he talks about seeing the court in slow motion. He sees the exact second that Hinata and his bicycle go their separate ways, and the look of shock that twists onto Hinata's face as he tumbles into the air. 

Fortunately, years of volleyball have honed Tobio's skill at estimating the trajectories of speeding objects, and he's near enough to run and catch Hinata before the pavement does the job for him. The force of the collision knocks them both to the ground, but Hinata is scrambling to his feet in an instant, a little scraped up, but otherwise unharmed.

"Nice receive," he grins at Tobio, and then he sees his bike.

Having no Tobio of its own to catch it, the poor thing flew off the side of the road and into an enormous tree. It's not quite unrecognizable, but Tobio is pretty sure the back half isn't supposed to bend at such a sharp angle, and he can see the battered seat lying some distance away. 

Hinata lets out a wail. Coach Ukai pokes his head out of his shop and tells him to shut up. 

"My bike!" Hinata cries anyway, almost in tears, and Tobio wants to punch that tree, or chop it with an axe, or possibly wage war on it and all its descendants. 

"Maybe it's fixable," he suggests, and Hinata runs across the road to check. 

The bike, unfortunately, appears to have reached the end of its days. The chain is broken, one of the pedals is actually shattered against the tree trunk, and the front tire has no more life in it than a deflated balloon. Even if those parts are replaceable, Tobio's pretty sure a bike that's bent in half at its middle won't roll properly. 

Hinata sinks into the grass at the side of the road and wails again. 

"How am I gonna get to school now?" he laments, turning to look up at Tobio with big, watery eyes. 

Tobio ruffles his hair comfortingly. "You could walk." 

"I could! But it would take so much longer…ah, well, I guess I can always get up earlier…" 

_Red alert,_ says Tobio's brain, because Hinata already gets up way too early and Tobio's not sure if he actually gets any sleep ever. Walking to school is out of the question. 

Which is why he finds himself hauling his boyfriend to his feet and saying, "We can get you a new bike." 

Hinata's whole body glows. He throws himself into Tobio's arms. 

" _Really?_ You'll help me find one, right? I can ask Mom to take us to the bike shop, probably, and—ooh! Natsu will want to come along, she likes shopping, and there's an ice cream place nearby and—Tobio! We can make it a date! But with Natsu and Mom—but they won't mind—please, Tobio, please?" 

Well, there goes Tobio's heart, bursting right out of his chest, the traitor. He can't possibly withstand the full force of a hopeful, excited Hinata. 

"Is Saturday okay?" he asks. "After practice?" 

Hinata whoops, and this time, Coach Ukai shoos them both away with a broom and a _get lost, ya damn kids!_

Tobio puts his arm around Hinata's shoulders and walks him all the way home. 

\--

As always, it surprises Tobio how easily Hinata-san is convinced to sanction her son's date with another boy. Tobio's own parents generally do not say much about the matter, but sometimes, in the silences at dinner, he thinks he can catch their disappointment out of the corner of his eye. 

None of it matters, though, when he's squished into the backseat of Hinata's mother's little car, while she and Shouyou sing along to the radio, loudly and oh so out-of-tune, and Natsu chatters about her light-up sneakers and the movie she watched last night and begs him, _Tobio-nii-chan will you please let me paint your fingernails again, please, it doesn't have to be all of them, only I got a new color called butterfly midnight sparkle and I think it would match your eyes._

Tobio wonders if it's possible to die of overexposure to such reckless happiness. 

Their destination is a town nearby, one that's full of colorful little shops and the scent of springtime. Natsu and her mother head into a shop with a display window lined with Sanrio plush toys, while Hinata takes Tobio's hand and practically drags him into the bike repair store across the street. Tobio breathes in the scent of rubber. It reminds him of the gym. 

"Oh!" Hinata exclaims. "Look at all of them!" 

And then he's bobbing around the display of new bicycles, gushing over the array of colors and the sleek designs. 

"How about this one, Tobio!" He gestures to a silver road bike. "It looks fast, like if I was gonna ride it, I'd feel like _fwoosh_ and _fwaaa!"_

"Dumbass," Tobio laughs. "That one's for city roads, not crazy hills like the one you climb every day." 

Hinata scrunches up his face in protest. Tobio wants very, very much to kiss him, but the middle-aged man at the shop counter already looks rather alarmed, and he'd rather not push it. 

"Fine, then, what about…" Hinata looks around, " _that_ one!" 

"That's for children." Tobio smirks at the glittering streamers sprouting from the handlebars of the tiny pink bike. 

"Oh, you're right," Hinata muses. Then he giggles. 

"What is it, dumbass?" 

"Nothing," Hinata chortles. "I just imagined Tsukishima trying to ride on that. His arms and legs would stick off like a spider." 

Tobio can't help but laugh at that, too. He can almost hear Tsukishima's dry _tch_ echoing in his head. He's not sure when it started to feel more endearing than condescending. 

Gazing at the shiny bicycles, a sudden thought flits into Tobio's brain and buzzes there like a mosquito, nasty and unwanted. 

"Shouyou," he says, "how much did your mother give you to spend?"

Hinata frowns and pulls a wad of crumpled paper _yen_ from his jacket pocket. 

"Uh…" he counts quickly. "11,000 yen. She said this was the most she could spare. _And_ I won't get any birthday presents this year, but that's okay, because I'll already have my bike, and then, of course, I always have _you_ , Tobio, and you're my favorite, so I don't really need anything else…" 

Where does he get off saying stuff like that so casually?? Tobio's left eye is twitching from the sheer effort of not kissing him. But that's not the point, not right now, and the shards of words he knows he has to say are already stabbing his throat even before they shove their way out of his mouth. 

"That's not going to be enough for any of these fancy new bikes," he says, ripping the bandaid off as quickly as he can. Predictably, it does nothing to lessen the squeezing in his chest when Hinata's face falls. 

"What am I gonna do, then?"

"Excuse me," Tobio says to the man at the counter. "Do you have any used bicycles for sale?" 

\--

The shop, as it turns out, has a total of one used bicycle, sitting by itself in the corner and looking, in Tobio's opinion, far too tall for Hinata. But they don't really have a choice, so after a few minutes of squawking and fussing, they leave the shop with one more bicycle and 11,000 fewer yen than they went in with. 

They meet Hinata-san and Natsu at the ice cream parlor, where Tobio gets his usual single scoop of plain vanilla in a bowl and Hinata makes fun of him for several minutes.

"I mean, you could eat that _anywhere!"_ he exclaims. "We're on a date, so it's special! You could at least get sprinkles or—" 

Tobio shuts him up with a quick, sticky kiss. 

" _Kageyama!"_ Hinata splutters. "We're—Natsu's watching—and Mom—" 

"I didn't see anything," Hinata's mother says, smiling mysteriously. 

Natsu, preoccupied with watching strawberry droplets race each other down her cone, just giggles. 

"Nii-chan, you're silly! I already know Tobio kisses you! Isn't he supposed to?" 

Tobio thinks Hinata might actually combust on the spot. His cheeks are all pink and his eyes are bulging. Tobio wonders if he's choking, and if so, whether it might be good to pat him on the back, or maybe he needs abdominal thrusts? They learned those in school—that's how you help choking people, right? 

"Tobio-kun, please remember to breathe," Hinata's mother murmurs, still smiling, and Tobio realizes he'd stopped somewhere between worrying about Hinata's health and gazing at his stupidly cute pout, painted rainbow from the stained-glass concoction in his chocolate-dipped waffle cone. 

Tobio stuffs his face furiously with plain vanilla. Maybe a brain freeze will cool his blush. 

\--

The bike doesn't fit in the car. Hinata collapses dramatically when the verdict is reached, moaning about how he'll have to return it now, and he'll never get a new bicycle, and he'll be stuck walking to school for the rest of his life.

"We're not that far from home," Tobio says. "Why don't you just ride it back? I'll race you." 

"You're on!" Hinata yells. "You're gonna eat dust, Tobio! I'm gonna destroy you!" 

_You already have,_ Tobio thinks as they wave goodbye to Natsu and Hinata-san with promises to be safe and get home before dark. 

The bike is too tall. He knew it would be. Hinata considers it silently for a few seconds. 

"My feet won't reach the ground," he grumbles, but, because he's never been one to give up, he tries to climb onto the seat anyway. 

In the beginning, Tobio laughs at his efforts. The first time, the bike simply tilts over. The second time, Hinata falls backward and Tobio has to catch him for the second time that week. 

And then it happens. The moment Tobio will look back on as the turning point in his career as a professional Sucker for Hinata Shouyou. 

Tobio is still snickering as Hinata hoists himself onto the seat, one foot on its pedal, the other reaching for the pavement to hold steady. The toe of his sneaker just _barely_ touches the ground, and _oh,_ now Tobio's never felt less like laughing in his entire sorry life, because the way the muscles in Hinata's calves constrict with the effort of stretching should be banned in every prefecture. 

Tobio doesn't realize he's gaping until Hinata shoots off down the road, and even then, it's difficult to begin his pursuit, because Hinata's compact frame perched on that monster bike is somehow, infuriatingly, _adorable._ Tobio wants to scream or maybe spike a ball really hard at whoever designed that accursed thing. He doesn't think he'll live long enough to do so. Yamaguchi won't be happy about taking his team to the Interhigh without their so-called genius setter. 

"Come on, Lazyama!" Hinata taunts. "Are you even gonna make this a challenge for me?" 

Oh, he'll make it a challenge alright. Tobio launches into a sprint, shoving all thoughts of tiny toes and taut calves into the deepest recesses of his mind. 

\--

He thought spending all of Sunday meditating and practicing his serves would clear his head. 

He was wrong. 

It's Monday, and Tobio is walking beside Hinata to the spot where they usually part ways. Hinata is chattering about some girl in his class who brought a frog to school in her pocket. At least, that's what Tobio thinks he might have half-heard. It's not like he's paying more attention to the way Hinata's feet strain when his bike pedals reach the lowest point of their rotation. Incidentally, he's also definitely not watching his little fingers curling around the fat, rubber handlebars. He thinks he can imagine just how they'd tighten over the brakes, strong and steady, and—

" _To-bi-o!"_

Hinata is waving one hand in Tobio's face. He blinks owlishly, realizing they've reached the intersection where Hinata's road curls up the hill into the countryside. 

"What's the matter with you today?" Hinata asks. "You're here, but you're not really here, huh?" 

"Huh?" Tobio scowls. "Dumbass, what does that even mean?" 

"I don't know!" Hinata retorts, sticking his bottom lip out childishly. "It doesn't matter! Aren't you gonna give me my goodbye kiss?" 

Tobio obliges, cursing all the bones in his body for wearing their _do whatever Hinata asks, no matter what_ hats today. 

Hinata vibrates happily and graces Tobio with that megawatt smile. 

"See you tomorrow!" he says, already cycling away. "I love you, Tobio!" 

The bicycle glints wickedly in the twilight, as if to say, _I win again._

\--

It only gets worse as the week goes on. Tobio wonders if he could write Hinata-san an anonymous letter, begging her to please just lower her son's bike seat a few centimeters, please, before one Kageyama Tobio suffers a tragically premature death and never makes it to the V League. 

Hinata pokes at him for being distracted, but it's not until Thursday that Tobio realizes he's being more obvious than he thinks. 

He and the other third-years from the volleyball club are all heading to Yachi's house for a study session. Hinata is riding ahead of them, tiny on top of that damned bicycle, and Tobio is trying to act like his eyes aren't desperately glued to the sight. 

Beside him, Yachi nudges him with her elbow. 

"You should tell him, huh?" she says quietly. 

"What?" Tobio snaps out of it, looking down at her. "Tell who what?"

She giggles. "Tell Shouyou-kun how cute he looks on his bike! You're totally thinking that right now, aren't you?" 

Tobio frowns. "What? No, I'm not." 

Behind them, Tsukishima snorts. "What's this? His Majesty has a height fetish?" 

Yamaguchi snickers. 

"Shut up, Tsukishima," Tobio growls. 

"Make me." Tsukishima pushes his glasses up, smirking magnificently. 

"Ahh, calm down, everyone!" Yachi waves her hands frantically. "Please don't start fighting! I'm sorry, Kageyama-kun, I didn't mean anything by it—" 

"Hey!" Hinata calls, meters ahead of them all. "Why are you all so slow today? And what's wrong with you, Tobio? You look like you swallowed a sea urchin." 

"What's wrong, indeed," Tsukishima murmurs. Yamaguchi laughs. Tobio wants to murder them all, starting with the damn bike. 

\--

All through the next week, Hinata blissfully neglects to lower his seat, and Tobio starts seriously looking into coffin designs. At practice, Tsukishima is relentless. He manages to work comments about Hinata's height into just about every conversation he has with Tobio, especially when they're within earshot of Hinata himself. 

"Your _boyfriend_ is jumping higher and higher these days," he says lazily one day, when he catches Tobio filling his water bottle. "I wonder if he'll hit another growth spurt soon. Wouldn't that be a shame." 

Tobio just glares at him. Nearby, Hinata gives them both a baffled look. 

Another day, in the locker room, their tiny first-year libero-in-training asks Hinata to help him get a towel down from the shelf. Tobio doesn't realize he's watching Hinata stretch up to reach it until he hears a familiar teasing snicker, and Tsukishima says, "Enjoying the view, your highness?" 

This is torture in its purest form, Tobio is sure of it. Not only does he have to put up with an _extremely_ self-satisfied Tsukishima at school, but he still has to endure Hinata and his bicycle every day on the way home. 

He's in his familiar spot at Hinata's side one evening, mentally weighing the pros and cons of moving to Iceland. He has just come to the conclusion that it really wouldn't be worth it to be five thousand miles away from those _thighs_ (and that sunny smile) when he realizes he's alone. 

Hinata has stopped, getting off his bike and looking at Tobio strangely, his eyebrows knitted together. 

"What?" Tobio asks. 

"Kageyama," Hinata starts, and, uh oh. That's not right. They only ever use family names around school anymore. 

But Hinata, unaware of the sirens blaring in Tobio's head, continues. 

"Is something wrong with me?" he asks. 

Tobio stares at him. "Huh?" 

"You're always distracted around me," Hinata says. "You don't listen to my stories and you forget to kiss me goodbye and yesterday, yesterday you fumbled that toss, and you never do that, not when you toss to me, so what's wrong? What did I do?" 

"You…" Tobio frowns. "What did _you_ do?" 

"Well, it has to be something I did!" Hinata is rocketing toward peak distress, his bike forgotten as he clenches his fists and approaches Tobio. "It has to be something I did, because, because _you're_ perfect! So what is it? Did I annoy you? Are you tired of me? Do…do you want to break up with me?" 

His voice trails away at the end of the last sentence, his eyes starting to fill with tears. 

And Tobio goes vanilla-ice-cream cold, because _why would he think that?_ Who in their right mind would ever want to give up _Hinata Shouyou?_

"You didn't do anything," he says quietly, reaching out to wipe away Hinata's tears. "There's nothing wrong with you." 

"Then, then what is it?" Hinata all but wails, burying his face in Tobio's chest, and Tobio lets him calm down for a little bit before he answers. 

"It's nothing you did," he says, "and it's not a big deal. I've just been distracted by—because, well—" 

"Because of what?" 

Tobio is glad Hinata's not looking at his face. He's sure he could win an award on the spot for Best Cherry Impersonator. 

"Your bike," he mumbles. "It's too big for you. Um, and, well, you—you look really…cute. On it." 

Hinata freezes in his arms. 

_Here it comes,_ Tobio thinks. 

" _That's_ what this was all about?" Hinata asks, and _now_ he looks up, his widening grin tinged with mischief. 

Tobio scowls. "It's not my fault you never fixed the seat! How do you even manage to get anywhere on that thing??" 

"Tobio thinks I'm _cute,_ " Hinata teases. 

"Dumbass! Of course I do! You're my boyfriend, aren't you?" 

Hinata just laughs and kisses Tobio on the mouth. 

"I was actually going to see if Mom would fix it tonight," he says. "But since you like it so much, maybe I'll never ask her!" 

And he dances back to his stupid, stupid bicycle and makes a great show of climbing up onto it and riding away, leaving Tobio to wonder if he'll ever move again.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i will love and cherish any kudos/comments you care to bestow upon me. drink your water and stay safe out there. <3


End file.
